We are seeing this all the time now - companies that before would never have even considered writing their own solution are now shunning the packaged software route and building from scratch.  A sign of the times...

I was reminded of this recently when I was contacted by IBM EMEA.  They are helping a university in South Africa, University of Stellenbosch, set up a BSc Honours course in Computer Science on Situational Applications.  They will be using my book Power in the Cloud as the basis for the class.

I have recently seen an up-tick in interest in the idea of situational applications.  It's getting ready to take off! 

... the speed and efficiency demanded of a resilient and responsive organization can occur only when employees find different ways to make continuous small adjustments that increase profits and decrease costs every day, every week, every month.

The only way to do this is to give them the tools and support they need to serve themselves.

“Self-service” does not mean turning business people into programmers. What it does mean is giving the right set of tools and support to the person closest to the problem, so that they can build powerful software solutions on their own. The goal is to get these knowledge workers to quickly put together “good enough” software solutions to solve specific problems – significantly reducing or even eliminating the time and coordination needed from IT. In this way, it becomes possible to address areas that were previously unaffordable or of low priority to the IT department. 

The target audience for a self-service approach is an educated professional (e.g., accountant, HR personnel) with modest computer literacy (and interest) that mostly includes the web and MS Office. They have basic computer experience like using a wizard to generate something new; interacting with spreadsheets, documents, and forms; and using drag and drop to rearrange items on the screen.

The types of applications being addressed will not replace core business applications. They address a different need – applications that are built for just a handful of users, applications that are used for only a few weeks or months, or applications that address a small piece of functionality. Called “situational applications,” they are a new software niche, where communities get form-fit, good-enough tools for the very particular needs of the community that uses them.  

Situational applications are a potent combination of tools, mindset, and methodology. They provide a formidable force that will help your organization meet today’s business challenges quickly and cost-effectively. It will reduce - or even eliminate in some cases - the need to use professional software developers (a valuable resource best used for enterprise-wide solutions), purchase an ill-fitting software package, or kludge a suboptimal, inefficient and incomplete solution using tools like Excel and email.

Here is Force.com's description of Visual Process Manager:

Force.com lets you automate any business process. Processes can be simple tasks—creating an activity, emailing an alert, or updating a data field—or more complex, like automating the quote–to-order process or scripting inbound and outbound calls. Whatever your process need, the new Visual Process Manager, together with workflow and approvals, enable you to rapidly design and run any business process in the cloud without infrastructure, software, or code.

Processes

Every company has hundreds of business processes. With the Visual Process Manager multi-step processes can be rapidly modeled in a visual designer and instantly run in the cloud.

Approvals

A specialized type of workflow called an “approval” can route information to a series of people, each of whom can approve or decline the information and then send it on to the next step in the process.

Rules

You can use various criteria to determine when a workflow is triggered. In addition, you can use rules to validate data and enforce business logic when a user is entering data. You can use formulas to perform calculations or to fill out other data based on user-defined entries.

Monitoring and queuing

Time-based workflows are placed into a queue that can be easily monitored from the administrative console. Creating transparency in business processes makes it easy to maintain an audit trail and keep tasks from falling through the cracks.

Tasks and alerts

It’s easy to alert people when their participation is required in a business process. Whether it’s to approve a PO or implement a request, alerts are sent via email and can be assigned as a Task in Force.com.

Presented by Delivered Innovation and SilverTree Systems

Overview

Delivered Innovation and SilverTree Systems are teaming up to provide business executives with an informative overview and peer-to-peer roundtable discussion of Cloud Computing and how this leading-edge technology can be leveraged to achieve breakthrough business results. Topics to be discussed include:

• What Is Cloud Computing? How did we get here?
  • How does “The Cloud” help me?
  • Benefits
• Risks and Mitigation Strategies
• How does Cloud Computing change the way we do business?
  • Time to market acceleration
  • Business model enablement
• Who are the players in Cloud Computing?
  • Amazon
  • Google
  • Microsoft
  • Salesforce.com
• How do I determine my Cloud strategy?
• Customer case studies
  • Adobe Systems
  • Polycom
  • School of Rock
• How do I get started?

• How do I get started?

All attendees receive a copy of Jonathan Sapir’s book, Power in the Cloud : Using Cloud Computing to Build Information Systems at the Edge of Chaos.

Seating is limited to 12 business executives, so order your ticket today to reserve your place at the table.

Agenda

Friday, February 19

8:00 – 8:30 Continental breakfast and networking
8:30 – 9:10 Michael Topalovich, Delivered Innovation
9:20 – 10:00 Jonathan Sapir, SilverTree Systems

Location

Regus Park Ridge Plaza
350 S. Northwest Hwy.
Suite 300
Park Ridge, IL 60068

About the Presenters

Jonathan Sapir is the CEO of SilverTree Systems and the author of Power in the Cloud : Using Cloud Computing to Build Information Systems at the Edge of Chaos. 

Michael Topalovich is the founder and CTO of Delivered Innovation. Prior to Delivered Innovation, Michael was a senior IT leader with Siebel Systems where in 2003 he spearheaded the systems management team for Siebel CRM OnDemand, one of the first enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings.

It is quite astounding to see the numbers being proposed.  The same applications could be developed and deployed in Force.com at a fraction of the estimated cost.

It won't be long before companies start catching on and realizing there is now a very different (and much less expensive) way to build information systems.  This is not just a 20% or even 50% improvement.  Building systems with a tool like Force.com, if done correctly, can be transformational for an organization - applications that were too costly to build suddenly become feasible, resources that were constrained become available, and the quality of systems dramatically improves.

The IT consulting industry is in for a shock.  Driving the bus up to a client and unloading high priced tech archs, DBAs, and a multitude of developers will quickly become a thing of the past.  

The times are definitely changing.  Quickly.

With Force, you aren't building from scratch - you are starting with a huge amount of functionality already in place.  Therefore, the cost and time to build custom solutions is radically altered.

This is a very good thing, because now companies can get exactly what they need, when they need it. They can implement in stages that are convenient to them, and they can eliminate a lot of hassle and need for training caused by the presence of fields and functionality that the users don't need.

This has already been proven by a number of Force clients, some of whom have written complete ERP systems tailored specifically to the needs of their business.

For a lot more on this, see here, here and here.

The franchise concept works because it is fully expandable. It has a proven formula, and the goal is to get each franchise up and running as quickly as possible.  But if the franchise organization has to implement and maintain an IT infrastructure at each franchise location, it quickly runs into a logistical nightmare.  Hardware and software needs to be installed, maintained and upgraded at each franchise individually.  Start up costs are high, the overhead to maintain the systems increases as the complexity of the system grows, and the chances of failures occurring rapidly multiply.

Cloud computing allows a franchise to easily duplicate their management system anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse. In addition, they can offer better support and security by being centrally managed.

The benefits of using Cloud computing (in particular, Force.com) in a franchise include:

• Faster Startup

Being able to simply click a button to add a franchisee allows the franchisee to just point their laptops (or any device with a browser and access to the internet) to the system and start working. No provisioning and deployment team needed to be sent from headquarters to set up the network and hardware.

• Lower Start Up Costs

Not having to install servers at each location drastically reduces the start up costs for each new franchisee.

• Lower Overhead

The overhead is lower because you only pay for what you use. In addition, having the franchises work under one large data center significantly drops the overhead of IT management.

• Easily Expanded Network

Using the internet as your network allows you to expand to any location with the click of a mouse.

• Easily Contracted Network

Using the internet as your network allows you to shut down a franchise with the click of a mouse.

• Much Easier Globalization

In addition to eliminating the need to install hardware and/or software outside the home country, Cloud platforms like Force.com have globalization already built in, supporting multi-language and multi-currency out-the-box.

• More Innovation

Being able to easily add or retract functionality allows the franchise to try new business models.

• Less Risk

Being able to easily start up and then close down if necessary reduces the risk of opening new locations. 

• Better Communication

It is now possible to distribute new data and functionality to each franchisee for them to use immediately.

• Better Security

It is much easier to keep track of security centrally compared to having an unorganized, self governed distributed system. Backup and disaster recovery are automatically taken care of for all franchisees – by the platform provided.

• Faster Expansion Rate

By working in the Cloud, you can easily expand to multiple locations at a faster rate. No need to create VPNs and try to integrate all the systems. Instead use the new technologies that are out there and keep it all connected from day one, but focus on expanding instead of managing.

• Increase Franchise Profits

Allowing you to grow at a faster rate and increase communication between the franchises will allow you to obtain a large market share at a faster rate. This will also directly reflect towards royalties and brand recognition which will help drive profits.

Cloud computing is a transformative technology shift for franchises.  It will allow franchise organizations to significantly reduce costs and risks, expand much more rapidly, and improve efficiency and management.  It’s time for franchises to jump on the Cloud bandwagon.

Contact SilverTree Systems for more information.